MacD on Music: Shadow Play

If you look hard enough, everyone has a Derry connection, from Bonnie Raitt playing with ex-College boy Paul Brady to Elvis covering a song by Phil Coulter. More recently, another fairly well-known name from across the water has forged a connection with our fine city; up-and-coming US folk singer Bob Dylan, best known for songs such as ‘Joey’ and ‘Wagon Wheel’.

Two years ago, Declan McLaughlin released his album ‘My Northern Soul’, with contributions from Scarlet Rivera, who’s violin is prominently featured on Dylan’s ‘Desire’ from 1976 and Declan, a long-time icon of the local music scene, has recently released a new album, ‘Shadows’ (available now in Cool Discs), made up of eight re-recorded songs from his back catalogue.

I caught up with Declan recently to talk about the new album: “After I recorded the last album, the record label I work with in the States [Need To Know Records] wanted me to get something out pretty quickly after the last one, so I suggested going back into the studio and taking two songs from the first four albums and re-record them. I wanted the quality to be a bit better to try and get radio play, and a lot of my songs have bad language in them, so I wanted to deal with that as well. I took Philip Wallace, Jonny Nutt, big Dan Miller, Jennifer Kelly and myself and recorded it with Rory Donaghy, who also does a wee bit of backing vocals.”

“It’s out now and it’s the best I’ve ever done, for a number of different reasons. I’m off the cigarettes a couple of years, so my voice is getting stronger, and I was able to go back, and I wasn’t under pressure in the studio, because I knew the songs were decent. I’m really happy with it. It’s the best I’ve ever done.”

Next, we spoke about Back Home In Derry, an upcoming showcase of some of our finest artists in the Millennium Forum on January 8th next year: “There’s a pile of musicians who play around the town who are really, really good, and they’re just playing in the bars in the town.

"Marty Healy went to about four of them, Ciara McCafferty, myself and a couple of trad musicians who are really good and what he’s done is he said ‘I’m going to book the Forum. Let’s see if we can put a night on. I’ll be doing an original set, and I think it’s a great thing because people in Derry are pretty supportive of music.

"People whinge and cry about the music scene, but it’s very good. The standard is really, really good, so what Marty wanted to do is put people onto a different stage, somewhere where people aren’t there for pints, they’re just there to support local musicians.”

Finally, we spoke a bit about last year’s reunion of The Whole Tribe Sings: “Wally [Philip Wallace] had got us together for that Tuned In project that he does with Paddy [Nash], and because of the great work they do I said yes, so we just practised the set we’d finished off with. I think it was ten years since we’d last played together. It was great to see a whole pile of people I’d not seen for a long time.

READ MORE: MacD on Music

"It was good to play along with the boys, and it reminded me that everybody in the band is still doing stuff musically. Wally is still banging stuff out [most recently as Hypnic Jerk], Jonny’s still putting stuff out, Dougal’s involved with a couple of choirs, Paddy’s just put a new album out [Still We Rise, available in Cool Discs], Tomas is still playing in a brass ensemble in the States, so we’re all still playing.

"It kind of shows you the amount of talent in that band, and the fact that after all that time that we’re all still speaking to each other and there’s nobody dead. I’m not sure if it’ll happen again, but if the right thing came along, I would probably do it.”

And that’s it from Declan. His new album ‘Shadows’ is available now in Cool Discs and on his website declanmclaughlinmusic.com. He’ll also be playing Limerick this Friday in the Big Top and Galway this Saturday in Leisureland.

Now, onto other business, and once again there’s a lot of it. First up, Asylum Road’s new single ‘Mask of Oblivion’ will be out this Friday (12th December) on all good streaming platforms.

Next, a festive one from tessio., who have recently released ‘Christmas No. 1’ ahead of their annual Christmas Jamboree in Bennigan’s on the 27th. It should be available in the same places as Asylum Road.

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Now we move on to Sister Ghost, who will be playing Belfast’s Waterfront Hall on Valentine’s Day. Recently in the finals for Album of the Year at the NI Music Prize, Sister Ghost has been making quite a splash since the release of her debut album ‘Beyond the Water’, including opening slots for Snow Patrol on their arena tour earlier this year.

This all ages gig will feature support from Cora Harkin and her band A.N.J.A. and tickets are on sale now via waterfronthall.co.uk.

Finally, time for the socials. Sister Ghost can be found on Instagram @sisterghostofficial, tessio. @tessio__, Asylum Road @asylum_road and Declan McLaughlin @declanmclaughlin_derry.